The jury that convicted Sara Gonzalez McLaughlin of first degree murder in 2015 didn't know about the months of abuse that preceded her grisly crime. She received a hard 50 cents but later accepted a plea deal to reduce her incarceration to a minimum of 25 years in exchange for giving up the right to appeal. Now, her advocates hope to get her out of prison by convincing the governor to grant her clemency a longshot attempt to correct an injustice. In her first interview with a reporter Gonzalez Nicklin called me from prison to talk about her experience with how sasco The man who held her in bondage and raped her 100 times in 10 months.
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Hi, sir, this is Sherman. How are you? I'm doing okay, how are you doing?
A little nervous. I've never done anything like this before.
Yeah. I imagine so and I had mentioned before I just want to make it clear that you know if you feel uncomfortable with any question you don't have to answer you can just say you know, I don't want to talk about that right now and I'll move on or if if you reach a point where it's just too much anxiety we can stop the conversation
I appreciate you taking the time and and having the courage to to do this I know it's uncomfortable you're you're talking to me from I guess inside the prison array of people all around you
you know I appreciate you to talk to me Dave You know I've never talked about this with anybody outside of attorneys and psychologists
and even my family time
talk about because it says still
hold a certain amount of power over
certainly understand this is this is your story now and and you have control over it. Are there things that that you want the world to know about you or what happened to you
actually like kind of a hard question to answer because they're taking the simplest way like everything that happened no know that when I moved into the house I had no idea what was in store for me.
I truly did of him as a father figure to me. I just had no idea. And there was a lot that went on when I got there
I know that I made a lot of decisions but that is not who I am. It's just a lot of really bad
moments living with him where you realized this is not at all what I thought I was getting into
I feel like later because it's not like I just moved in and a week later, like bad things are happening was just so fragile. That I feel like it wasn't until I was really foreign that I started to really question things almost like I was to a point where I didn't feel like I could do a lot about it
what are some of the ways that that he would have manipulated you or or trapped you in this situation?
I feel like I remember when I first moved there. He would just like he said, you know Hey, like you're living here. I just want to let you know that this is my house. Right Like, first of all, like, it's just little things that at the time like I, in my mind, I was like, I understand this your house, you just don't want me bringing things in here. So I was thinking that I should. And immediately I was given access to weed and alcohol as much as I wanted. But even that, like have relations, like I had to use it in the house. And he would be there a lot. I feel like that's just like, little ways to kind of gaining control. Right away, which was part of simulation of me moving in was that I was going to find a job. And he would charge me rent. And until I found a job, he would just mark it on a bill and I would eventually have to pay him back. Once I started working. And kind of never really mentioned after he started demanding more from me like way later on. He was also because I didn't have a job. When I first got there, I did have a phone that I had had. But of course, even when I started working, like paying him like he's getting off, he will leave me a little bit pursued, and I headed by my own. Everything else was going pretty soon, you know, I couldn't afford my phone bill. So he had had an extra said, Well, you can use this it's kind of like the same thing. Like he would pay it but it was still his like, I wasn't little things like I wasn't allowed to like have it in my room at night because he said technology would make me like either charge it out. You know, like, things that were he was most everything that I did, and I was always just a reason for the things that he did to maintain that control.
This was at a time in your life where you you didn't have many other options. And so it was easy for him to establish control.
Absolutely, I didn't have a relationship with my parents at the time. Because of a lot of other things that went on
how long were you with him before he started making demands? That would amount to sexual abuse.
It was probably a good six months later. Like until that point, like there were red flags, of course, like now that I'm an adult. Now that I have a clear mind, like I can look back and say hey, like you that really wasn't right. But up until that point. There was really nothing I mean, obviously it's very strange that six year old man would want to post at a time when I was in their party her off. But like there was no advantages other than just a little controlling things. Yeah, and then I really did like I call him dad that whole time. He wanted to help me eventually go to school once I got on my that he was going to show me how to run businesses so I can actually run a business on my own. I really looked at him as a mentor. To him, my mentor my family had businesses or anything like that, like I just admire that I wanted to learn from
you must have felt betrayed the first time he forced himself on you.
Yeah. Absolutely. And even before that, because he had concessions, something that he was in love with me or something one time and I just quickly shut it down. And I really do see you as a father, like a mentor, friend and I did. And it just I was very crushed the first time that happened and I felt completely helpless at that point. And
how do you cope with this kind of abuse, and it's happening frequently and for months at a time, I just, it's hard for me to understand how, what daily life would be like under those circumstances.
I really didn't cope with it in a way that really made me feel better. I was, there was a lot of drugs and alcohol in that house, General. And that was the only relief that I felt the whole time. That is kind of a dark road to go down to because like, anyone who's ever been down that road knows that it only helps for so long. And eventually, that doesn't help anymore. And it just makes things worse. When I was the only thing I was doing, I guess what you could call code.
I've read some of the, the psychological reports and case documents around this. And you know, I understand that by the end, so you felt like there was no way out?
I just wonder would, would you? You know, do you regret killing him? Would you do it again? Under the circumstances?
I absolutely regret killing him. Because I think for me, I just had been dealing with a lot of different levels of like pain all throughout my life. You know, like, I wish I could say that. I was just this ideal 17 year old girl and I moved in there. But that's not sure. Like, if I was I don't think that he would have said to me, and I don't think that the tactics would have worked as well. But like, for the years that I lived there with him, like I just felt like all of this building up and building up. And that, like I regret last thing that happened just as a whole. You know, like I regret meeting him. I regret
everything like when I sit back and I think about how excited I was 14 years old. But I regretted that moment of feeling him more than any other one because that that is the moment that my pain is the freedom like spilled over onto many different people.
Mommy, yes, I absolutely regret and I would never do that again.
When when you're preparing and going through that trial, what kind of conversations did you have with your attorney? About what was happening?
I did tell him what was happening just kind of, in general terms. I went in more detail with the forensic psychologist
said your attorney prepare you for what was going to happen or what could happen. Did you realize that the result could be spending the rest of your life in prison
at that time, definitely not my attorney. I think he was, in a way maybe trying to make me feel better. But he really didn't kind of prepare me for what was happening. He didn't prepare me for what was happening child or even the possibility of my life in prison. Like, I felt like especially because I had like shared with him like what had happened and I share with forensic psychologists and he was kind of just had this mentality of it's gonna be fine. Like, we know what happened, it's gonna be fine. But then when I went to trial, nothing was we talked about was brought up like it was just completely passed over. Like it went on I just really started to feel like this is nothing like what I thought was gonna happen.
It was shocking to me to learn the direction that the judge gave to your attorney. We know now from a a transcript of a conversation the judge had with the attorneys in the chamber outside of the public outside of the jury. And the judge said that your attorney wasn't allowed to bring up any of the abuse because he was not on trial. And you were did. Did you realize at the time that he had been forbidden from talking about this?
No, I didn't until later, actually, when we had had discussions afterwards. And as I was going through it, I had discovered that
it must have been very confusing during the trial to to not understand why this wasn't part of it.
It was very confusing, especially when I genuinely thought that was going to be part of it. I remember my attorney saying like specific things that he was going to bring in, it just never happened.
What do you think is says about the criminal justice system, that what you endured couldn't be part of, of your defense?
A lot, I think, says that it's not ready, have these kind of uncomfortable, what it's designed as uncomfortable conversations. I've felt almost like, in order to not have this uncomfortable conversation, it did anything, it could just keep it quiet. And I don't think that if you really seek justice in that way, you know, like, I kind of shared with you a little before, like, even as I was going through this, like trial and appeals and all of that, like I never, never had this mentality of I'm just gonna get out scot free. That's what I'm fighting for. That's what I want. But I did always want fair. Say everything that happened, like how can somebody decide what's fair?
What is life in prison been like for you?
While there's a lot of ups and downs, for sure, I will say that I have had a chance to heal in a way that I wasn't able to, you know, when I first got locked up in a weird way, like, it was just a relief that I wasn't going through what had been happening. From time I was 17. I was 19. And I finally like to take a step back and just breathe, and kind of think about what happened. I mean, as you can imagine, like as you're doing manager, processing, things like that, like, there are definitely moments you can't really believe that it's happened. And then as things continue, like, kind of hand it over and over again, like I still couldn't believe it was happening the way that it was happening afterwards. But I have had a lot of personal fitting here, for sure.
I think you're part of a writing program for a while. Did that help you kind of accept what it happens and, and reflect on it.
Writing definitely became a big part of my healing and recovery in general. And I actually use every day for a long time from when I was in County until a couple years after I got here. Write letters to that are heartfelt in what happened in China just process my own shame. And, I mean, I feel there are moments I still struggle with that today. Because I just feel like it has such a stronghold on me for so long. But yeah, I've tried my best to feel better from the time like I feel like in a way, I don't see this all the time with a lot of people who get incarcerated but like it's almost like that moment. Like I just knew, like kind of a customer on that. I had to be different like my life had changed. Like it was horrible. Like everything that had been happening was just horrible. If I did a pretty much as soon as I got Carcer I tried to learn everything I could and just better myself and really think about how I could have handled it differently you know what I would do in different situations?
You're working with some dogs now is that right?
Yeah, I trained dogs. I'm actually the primary nine month old puppy right now what kind of puppy they are all lab in Golden Retrievers for this program run through this place can be any kind of Washington kids as they train service dogs, we do service facility dogs and Guide Dogs for the Blind. It's pretty cool. I will say that, you know, I just I've been in the group for a year and a half. And like I had already come a long way like within myself I've time I started a group and I just had no idea like, how much more it would help me like I will say that these dogs show me the way that I didn't even know that I needed healing. Like they're just amazing. For sure.
I just have a few questions left i i appreciate you hanging in this long and talking about some difficult things I have one more difficult question to to ask if which is dealing with the the implants which I feel like are a particularly cruel part of of what happens I just wonder if you could talk about the physical and emotional discomfort of of this and whether you've asked the state to try to remove them
definitely like they have been the cause constant reminder of what happened to me that right after surgery is when things spiral even more really at that point, I belong to him or he felt that way. Of course the grapes did continue at that time, but it made it more painful
taken an emotional toll for sure. When I first got incarcerated I didn't ask them to remove them and that
traumatic because I had gone to the doctor. How it was handled like, I just felt like they were all just curious. Like I remember one, there's what you call another nurse. Like they both touched me. And then they did all of that just to tell me that now that they later, I just recently actually asked again, because after that first experience, like I was terrified to go back I did not want to go in like here. It's just such a small community. And yeah, it would be ideal if all the nurses would follow HIPAA and you know, keep your medical stuff private that they've told a lot of people a lot of that was just very dramatic. We actually have a new medical provider. When I first was incarcerated it was some place called Horizon now it's like, I don't remember what it's called, like center on or something. So I finally just got the courage to ask. I'm still waiting on our response.
Did they indicate how long it would take to to let you know
if I don't have a couple weeks, I'll have to probably inquire made a decision. They don't always tell you until either it just never happens. Or they just say come on like you're leaving to go do something.
It is shocking to me that that the nurses would treat you as a spectacle and would reveal personal information to others.
It's really hard to Sure.
Well, perhaps an easier subject to talk about is the there are a number of advocates who have taken an interest in in your case and have thrown their support behind you. That that has to make you feel a little better about everything.
Especially in the beginning I, like I said, just the guilt in the shame was just so strong like myself and honestly, like, it took me a long time to bear voices also, like telling me like, hey, like, you made decisions, but you are not the only one that made that decision. I kind of like had to mature a little bit too. I was so young. Before I realized, like, hey, like, what happened was wrong.
It wasn't just me like I wasn't the only one that made bad decisions. Wasn't your choice? So yeah, and I almost like in a way, like needed them. First before I could find
them have put together a a clemency request on your behalf and and submitted that to you. Do you have hope for that clemency request? Do you think that it will get considered?
I don't know. I mean, I would think that it will be considered, but just based off of my experience, already. I'm not sure.
Governor will ultimately decide whether to grant clemency. Well, what would you say to the governor, if you could sit down and talk to her about it?
I would say that I'm not that young girls found herself in a situation of hopelessness, that she had no idea how to deal with that I have dedicated every day since my incarceration to better myself, not only for myself, but for my family and the community. And that I will continue to make sure that everything that happened wasn't just for nothing. I want to continue to give back and help other young girls who just feel so hopeless like that. Is the worst feeling maybe never have just held
down like completely hopeless.
And I just hope that my story can touch the heart of someone who feels ow or maybe even one day I'll be able to touch the circumstances that somebody has experienced and things that I experienced.
Sir, I'm so glad I had the opportunity to have this conversation with you. I thank you for being brave enough to talk about this. Thank you
